Virtual machine migration

This page provides architectural guidance and migration workflows for migrating virtual machines (VMs) from on-premises data centers or other public clouds to Google Cloud.

If you are a cloud architect, migration engineer, or infrastructure lead, use the information on this page to evaluate target compute platforms, plan migration waves, and execute cutovers with minimal workload downtime.

Before you read this page, you should have an inventory of your source virtual machines and an understanding of your application network dependencies.

Target platform options

When planning VM migrations, use the following table to choose a target compute platform based on your operational requirements:

Scenario Target platform Recommended tool Advantages
Rehost to native cloud infrastructure Compute Engine Migrate to Virtual Machines Avoids on-premises hypervisor licensing costs, supports dynamic autoscaling, and uses Active Assist recommendations to automatically right-size VM resources and optimize costs.
Retain existing VMware operational tooling Google Cloud VMware Engine VMware HCX Preserves existing vSphere and vCenter operational workflows with zero guest OS modifications, minimizing operational disruption and team retraining.

Migrate to Compute Engine

Migrate to VMs provides an automated migration path to Compute Engine.

Key capabilities of Migrate to VMs

Migrate to VMs provides the following capabilities:

  • Continuous background replication: workloads start running on Compute Engine in minutes while data volumes stream in the background.
  • Non-disruptive test cloning: clone and test running workloads in isolated VPC networks without affecting production source environments.
  • Automated OS adaptation: automatically inject drivers and license configurations required for Compute Engine.

For information about the end-to-end migration workflow, see VM migration process.

Migrate to VMware Engine

VMware Engine provides a dedicated VMware Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) that runs on Google Cloud.

Key capabilities of VMware HCX

VMware HCX provides the following capabilities:

  • Layer 2 network extension: extend on-premises subnets to VMware Engine to keep your existing VM IP addresses during migration.
  • Bulk and live vMotion migration: move hundreds of VMs simultaneously with scheduled cutovers or migrate your VMs without application downtime.
  • Unified management: manage cloud-hosted VMware clusters by using familiar vCenter, NSX-T, and vSAN interfaces.

For information about the end-to-end migration workflow, see Use VMware HCX to migrate VMware VMs.

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